Process and Apparatus for Controlling the Preparation of Beverages

Abstract

A dispensing apparatus for hot beverages is provided with means (4,5) to filter hot pressurised water through ground edible ingredients such as coffee, tea or herbal remedies in a chamber, means (17,18,20) of monitoring real-time data concerning brewing parameters; a controlling unit (16) comprising means of storing data, means of comparing the real-time data to a set of stored data and / or threshold parameters, stored in the controller's memory associated with the brewing system, to determine whether a correction to the parameters should be made, and means (8,9,24) of altering at least one of the relevant brewing parameters, when required to bring said real time parameter in line with said recorded parameter to obtain consistent high quality of the dispensed beverage.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for controlling the preparation of beverages. More particularly, the present invention concerns a brewing process and apparatus, including an electronic controller, conceived to control the process of making freshly-brewed hot beverages obtained by filtering with hot, pressurised water from ground or minced edible products such as tea, coffee, herbal remedies and the like. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention is aimed for use in fully automatic hot beverage dispensing machines for homes, offices or so called food-service—or HoReCa—sites. The invention apparatus can also be used to dispense hot beverages from soluble products, i.e. the so-called instant drinks. [0003] Fully automatic beverage dispensing machines, particularly the ones brewing hot drinks from ground fresh ingredients, are not yet recognised for an outstanding quality of their drinks. A manually prepared espresso by a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017] It is an aim of the invention to solve the above problems and to provide a brewing process and apparatus that constantly maximize the quality and the extraction yield of hot beverages obtained from ground fresh ingredients filtered in a brewing chamber by correction of parameters.

[0019] One further aim of the present invention is to reduce the splashing of coffee usually associated to a fixed beverage outlet spout's height of beverage dispensing machine utilizing beverage containers bearing different rim heights.

[0032] By controlling and adjusting the flow rate of the hot water fed to the brewing chamber it is possible to improve the quality of coffee brewed from capsule, where compression and particle size are not adjustable.

Problems solved by technology

Fully automatic beverage dispensing machines, particularly the ones brewing hot drinks from ground fresh ingredients, are not yet recognised for an outstanding quality of their drinks.

The above solutions, however, are not sufficient because several other factors may affect the correct dispensing of a coffee.

Variable quantities of coffee in the brewing chamber may also be due to lack of precise measuring devices: such is the case when the grinder is operated for a pre-set amount of time, when volumetric chambers are fed with coffees having different particle sizes, e.g. because of wear of the grinder.

Such a solution relies on the physical properties of the spring and on the amount of coffee and pressure of water within the brewing chamber and certainly cannot give an adaptive answer to conditions dictated by other considerations such as the type of coffee to be dispensed or desired extraction yield.

The above discussed documents do not address the problems related to the type of coffee being dispensed, the volume or size of ground coffee used, or other considerations suggested by market preferences or cost-saving.

Moreover, in a dispensing machine using pre-filled capsules containing ground coffee, the capsules cannot undergo any further grinding of the coffee therein contained and, therefore, this parameter cannot be changed.

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